Legacy
by CactusFarmer
Summary: Three years after the events of Reckoning, Dru Anderson is on a mission to track down missing Svetocha. But when it turns out that Ash may not be the last Silverhead and that this new wolfen is hunting Svetocha too, it becomes a race against time. With Ash, Shanks, Nat- and a newly returned Graves- in toe, can Dru find the girls before it's too late?
1. Chapter 1

Admittedly, I could have landed on my ass a little more gracefully but there's really only one way to fall out of a second story window in the dead of night. No part of it involves grace.

I hit the ground hand, a sharp jab of pain up from my tail bone. It knocked the wind out of me in one gasp. My malaika rolled a bit away into the grass as up in the shattered remain of the window, Ash snickered. It was emphasized by the rattle wheeze of a sixteen wheeler roaring past on the freeway just across from the marshland at my back. I squinted up and found him, a shadow in the bullseye of the shattered glass, his head covered by a duck hunter hat.

"Smart ass," I muttered, hauling myself to my feet. I grabbed up my malaika and waved my arm at him. "Don't stand there watching me! Follow _him_!"

"On it." The mic in my ear crackled with Shank's voice. He was breathing hard, running on foot in human form up the winding staircase inside the abandoned factory I'd just been hurtled out of backwards. His footsteps were hallow, metallic thuds through the small earbud. "Keep Ash with you. You know he's still rusty with the change."

"He needs the practice," I sighed. "Nat, sights?"

"Roof's clear, he's gotta still be inside."

"I said I was on it," Shanks barked. "Meaning, I'm on _him_."

"Kinky." I could hear Nat grin.

"Remember who the alpha is here, Nathalie," Shanks huffed. "Show a little respect."

"Remember who _your_ alpha is, Robert."

"Guys, not on the community channel," I rolled my eyes. "Besides, Ash is too young to hear this stuff."

Ash growled at me from the window.

Technically speaking, our job in North Dakota wasn't to track down a rogue wolfen who'd developed a certain... taste for humans. We'd been out there for almost a month and because nobody in the right mind wanted to be out in North Dakota, we were the only team the main Schola had out here to do it's dirty work. It wasn't so bad, really. A nice distraction from the real work, a good test run for Ash, but hell, did I hate being thrown out of windows by rageful wolves on sterroids.

I tasted wax and oranges and backed up into the tall grasses to get a better view of the back of the building. Four low, wide stories, sixteen windows each, with three smoke stacks at the far side. When this place was operational, it must have been a real sludge pot, churning black smoke into the air by the minute. The windows were shattered here and there like missing teeth and the beige grasses had started to clink to the base of the building, a drab, beige concrete. Dried vines climbed up the exterior and a fat orange moon hung in the sky- a mid January hunter's moon. Appropriate.

With the taste of wax oranges came the distinct tang of cold, like blood. I felt the aspect wash over me, warming a flush to my cheeks, which I tucked down into my scarf. Suddenly I could hear farther, Shanks' pounding footsteps on the stairs and his breath in my ear, Nat swearing. Ash mumbling to himself.

And the wolfen, snarling mad, working his up towards the roof.

"Nat, he's coming your way," I warned.

I saw a figure up on the roof move slightly in the shadows and knew it was her. She pumped the barrel of her rifle, the sound accompanied by three deep growls in my ear. I rolled my eyes, sliding my malaika into the holster on my back.

Wolves, they all have to be heard.

Sizing up the outer wall, I heard the ghost of Christophe in my mind, warning me, "Dru. Leave it to them. Play your part."

Well, what Christophe didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

"Coming up," I told them.

"What?" They all said at once- in Ash's case, a shout right through the window.

So maybe I hadn't had a graceful exit. My ass would be hurting at least until tomorrow. But that didn't mean I couldn't have a graceful entry.

I backed up some more, heels sinking into black mud, and eyed a rusted exhaust pipe running along the outside of the building. The aspect brightened, tightened, my fangs scraped along my chapped lower lip. I really had to get to a target, because your girl needed chapstick, lip balm, _something_. Pit stops just weren't cutting it anymore for the essentials. I pictured Dad scoffing at me, "Going soft of me dru-girl." And maybe he was right.

I grinned and took a running start right at the wall, the world whipping past me. Crystalline, far off city lights became a sequence of streaks in the corner of my eye.

"Ash?" Shanks called through the earbud. "Sights?"

"She's climbing," Ash said, his voice still raw, still unused to words. I passed him, a wide pale face blinking at me. A slow smile crept across his face and he leaned out the window, craning his neck back. "Fast."

Faster, faster, I heard Chris grilling me. Three years post-Bloom and the Aspect was like breathing. Better than breathing, as weird and unfamiliar as it was. My scalp tingled, not from the cold or my itchy wool hat. I felt my nails harden, tearing into the metal of the pipe as I climbed.

I burst up onto the roof just as the wolfen did, a massive, snarling, dark thing. His eyes were red, spit dripped from his teeth. Clumps of fur were either missing or matted down with _something_ I preferred not to think about.

Nat leveled the gun on him, her own smooth fur climbing across her skin, inching out of the sleeve of her jacket across her hands, up her neck. I landed on the balls of my feet between her and the wolfen, knees crouched.

"Shit, Dru-"

The wolfen and I weighed each other up. For a brief moment I felt a sharp bite of fear. A reflex, from the past. A name surfacing up, clawing at my heart. Was he Broken? Broken and mad or just... bad?

Shanks burst out of the same door that the wolfen had moments ago, rapidly shifting. He fell to four paws and led out a howl that ratcheted up through the ground into my bones. The wolfen flinched and made the mistake of turning towards Shanks, hackles rising. He heard the grind of my boot on the gravel flooring and spun. We launched at each other only to be caught in mid air, tangling fur and hair, tooth and blood.

Anyway, I'm Dru Anderson. Been a while.


	2. Chapter 2

The chopper descended, kicking up clouds of fresh snow. I shielded my eyes and watched it touch ground, four men in black armored jackets jumping to the ground with bent knees. At the sight of one of them, I smiled.

"Benjamin!" I called.

He spotted me in the tree line and his shoulders relaxed, easing down from his ears despite the cold. He cut towards me through the snow. He was swearing, but looked equally as likely to grab me up and hug me.

"This was supposed to be an easy trip," Benjamin said by way of greeting.

Behind me, came a groan and a thud.

Shanks dropped the body of the now human wolfen onto the ground. He and Nat had shifted back and the pair of them stood on either side of Ash, who shivered.

"Still no shoes on him?" Benjamin sighed, eyeing Ash's bare feet.

"He's more comfortable without," Nat shrugged, making Ash beam. She nudged the body with her boot. "You gonna take him off our hands or what?"

Ben sighed again and motioned for his men to come in and take the wolfen.

We'd been out in North Dakota for about a month, the four of us. Special assignment from the Order which nobody at the main Schola in NY had been too happy about. They'd never sent us so far from NY, they argued, and what about the weather? How would we handle the snow? Gran would have laughed in their faces over it- city folk worried about a little dusting.

"Here." Benjamin reached into his jacket and handed over a slip of paper with icy fingers.

It was a note from Hiro. Didn't even need to open it to know that. It had been sealed with wax and his initials were traced in fine black ink in the upper corner. Like an invitation to a party or a wedding. Rolling my eyes, I tore the seal and skimmed, brow furrowing as I read.

"We're not due back for another week," I told him. Shanks plucked the note from my fingers and skimmed it too. It was a call back home, no warning or explanation.

"They're having a bit of a... hiccup in the new wing," Ben shrugged. "Christophe says he's overwhelmed."

"Big bad Chris can't handle a couple of girls?" Shanks scoffed. He passed the note back to me and I shoved it into my pocket. Ben winced at that, no doubt mourning the loss of such fine calligraphy.

"Like you'd do any better," Nat rolled her eyes. "Just the mention of tampons sends you into a tizzy."

"Oh no," Shanks groaned, looking skyward. His nose was red, cheeks raw from the cold. "You're starting to sound like Dru. Twang and everything."

"I don't twang and I don't say tizzy," I said. "I linger in the vowels is all."

"Savor," Ash offered. It was his word of the week last week.

"Thanks Ash, that's right," I grinned.

"Well, can we savor this conversation on the way home?" Benjamin huffed. He stomped his feet, shoved his hands under his arms. "I was supposed to be on fifth avenue today. And here I am, wasted."

It was evening by the time we reached NY which meant that the schola was just waking up. As much as it seems like a bad idea to put a school full of nocturnal supernatural teens in the middle of a major city, it's actually the most logical. The city that never sleeps wouldn't think twice about a boarding school fully of rangy boys and the occasional, distant howl.

The helipad was marked with a big x on top and we landed dead center. Ash bounced on his seat, checking to make sure I was watching. It had become his favorite part, the landing. One of the boys had shown him an X Men movie and how he was convinced we were all mutants, which admittedly wouldn't be the weirdest part about any of us.

"We'll handle this," Benjamin said, wrinkling his nose at the now shackled wolfen. And they would. They'd have to first discover if he was broken or acting on his own. In the last three years, there had been a shift in attitudes I guess. Probably something to do with Ash. "You all head in."

He didn't have to tell us more than once to abandon the bitter cold. We rolled out of the chopper and hurried along the roof, diving head first down the stairs towards the warmth and hum of the scholas interior.

"I'm grabbing food," Shanks yawned as we filed into the main hallway. Students milled around, sleepy eyed, heading for the caf. He threw his arm over Nat's shoulder. "You in?"

"Only if you shower first," Nat threw his arm off and looked towards me. "Hey Dru- you're not going to eat first?"

Her blue eyes rounded with worry. It made me smile and feel warm, down to the toes. Dru from a few years ago might have shrugged it off, brushed it aside, but once you get used to be worried over, cared for, it's hard to go back. And I didn't want to, not anymore.

"I'll check in with the girls first," I called over my shoulder.

Ash stuck to my heel, even when I tried to shoo him off for food. He was still bundled up and the warmth made his cheeks flush- or maybe it wasn't the heat. There was a spring in his step, his bare feet slapping the stone floor. "Easy, tiger." I grinned at him.

I think he just liked seeing the girls.

The Blonds stood guard at the entrance to the east wing of the Schola. We marched past the dorms, past my own room, to the gym where they snapped to attention. No matter how long I knew them, I had a feeling I'd never really be able tell them apart.

"Milady," the one on the left said, stepping aside. He tried not to wrinkle his nose at Ash. "Pet."

"We talked about this," I warned him. He shrugged already looking past me. Asshole.

Through the double swinging doors of the gym, we all heard a sudden yelp. A barely muffled scream. And then, startlingly, a smattering of laughter.

"What the hell-"

I pushed the doors open with locked arms and they swung forward. I had just enough time to dodge a flying bow staff which flung straight towards my head.

"Shit!"

My voice echoed across the gym; now starkly silent. My shoes squeaked as I straightened, glancing back at where the staff cracked against the wall. A chunk of plaster had been taken out. To think, that could have been my head.

"Dru."

Christophe called my name and I turned towards it, on instinct. He looked just the same, tall, lean, still smelled like breakfast and the good kind- the sweet kind. None of that "eat up it's good for you" sort of breakfast.

And he was standing in the middle of a room full of Svetocha. All of them armed.


End file.
